


In Death's Dream Kingdom

by We_Have_Become_Anathema



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Grace Marking, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 12:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/687127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/We_Have_Become_Anathema/pseuds/We_Have_Become_Anathema
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucifer is there when he closes his eyes, quiet, observing Sam with a scrutiny that is frightening. It’s as if Sam is the only thing in the world, and when he forces himself to look at Lucifer, he can see it in his eyes, how terribly the angel wants to understand him. For all that he says they are the same, angel and vessel, endless cruel parallels twining their fates together, it seems that there is some essential portion of Sam that remains alien to Lucifer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Death's Dream Kingdom

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for an Anon prompter over on my Tumblr, it was meant to be an ask box fic and rather ran away with me.
> 
> Italicized text and the title are exerpts from T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men".

It’s imbecilic really, incredibly so, but for some reason, Sam can’t bring himself to leave. He doesn’t enjoy the bar, or the glances that women, and the occasional man, send his way, or even the alcohol itself. Much.

No, he’s never been like Dean, never found solace at the bottom of the bottle, an old friend in the whiskey on his tongue.

So really, he should have picked a better place to hide from his life, from Dean, than a bar. It’s not the place where he feels content, but it’s something to keep him busy, try to keep his mind off his unpardonable sins.

The blood, the betrayal, the releasing of Lucifer himself.

The dreams he’s been having.

So if he takes to drinking at the bar after a long shift, of coming back into his hotel room at the stage of pleasantly buzzed where things are dulled and heightened all at once, where you’re warmed from the inside; well, it’s only because he needs that special brew of liquid confidence to close his eyes at night. Otherwise he would be plagued with the guilt.

_This is how the world ends…_

Lucifer is there when he closes his eyes, quiet, observing Sam with a scrutiny that is frightening. It’s as if Sam is the only thing in the world, and when he forces himself to look at Lucifer, he can see it in his eyes, how terribly the angel wants to understand him. For all that he says they are the same, angel and vessel, endless cruel parallels twining their fates together, it seems that there is some essential portion of Sam that remains alien to Lucifer.

So he spends his dreams in a bed not so different from ones he’s lived his entire life with, sheets only a modicum better than he’s used to, and an archangel endlessly staring at him as if he holds the secret to life and death itself, as if he is the most precious and mysterious thing in the world.

_We are the hollow men…_

Perhaps it’s the simple fact that Lucifer looks at him, really looks at him, not glancing or passing or looking through, that Sam needs the alcohol. Otherwise he would think too much, listen too closely to all the words that Lucifer isn’t saying when he speaks of his empathy for Sam’s trials, for what is yet to come. He’s never said that he loves Sam; but he speaks in the tongue of the angels each time Sam slowly slips back to consciousness, and Sam can’t help but wonder what those sibilants and plosives mean. He’s almost sure that there is more truth in that whispered Enochian than all the rest of the world.

Lucifer has not spoken since that first night, not unless directly addressed a question, and Sam finds himself endlessly grateful for the quiet presence He shouldn’t be grateful for the Devil, shouldn’t look forward to the hushed conversations they hold in a world that will never be real, in a time that will never exist.

He knows that he’s stealing peace, borrowing time that should never be his, finding a shelter in the eye of the storm.

But he can’t bring himself to wish for a night of dreamless sleep.

And if he accidentally answers the one time Lucifer asks him a question, eyes older than the galaxy staring at him with that immutable focus, then can you truly blame him? Of course, because he is the Boy King, the Boy with the Demon Blood, the vessel for the damnation of the world, would-be consort to the once and future king.

_Between the idea_   
_And the reality…_

When he finally sees him, outside of that niche he’s carved for them in his mind, his dreams, he stands transfixed. This shouldn’t be possible, the sigils on his ribs… but he’d answered a question.

“It’s impolite to stare, Sam.”

Sam is surprised to realize his words are warm, when he’s always seemed so cold, and he speaks Sam’s name more reverently than a prayer. When his eyes sweep through the establishment, they are dull and impassive until they fall upon Sam. Everything about him screams with a silent voice, reaching with incorporeal arms, proclaiming his intent while never once insisting. He is assured of their fates, of how this will end.

And that shouldn’t affect Sam as it does. It shouldn’t matter to him at all, but it does, Lord help him, how it does.

_Shape without form, shade without colour_   
_Paralyzed force, gesture without motion…_

Lucifer slides into his life with all the ease of a gas expanding to fill a room, sightless, tasteless, expanding until he’s perfectly acclimated and ever present. His words are rare, the barest whispers at the peak of the evening rush, so Sam has to lean in to hear him, and his frozen breath ghosts over Sam’s skin like a caress. He phrases any questions with expert care so that Sam will never accidentally have to respond with a yes, for he holds the word in far too high of esteem to hear it futilely spoken. His gaze never leaves Sam for the long hours he warms a stool at the bar, watching every motion of Sam’s with the same intensity as the first time he saw him, as if each minutia is the answer to an unspoken question.

He’s never once set boundaries or asked for anything, but Sam finds that the gaze changes when he speaks to others too closely, tarries too long, when Lindsey flirts with him. It’s suffocating, as if that subtle change in the abiding gaze robs him of all air; and he swears he can feel cold fingers reaching for his heart, just shy of connecting with flesh and spirit. It’s a possessiveness denied, a restraint so strongly held that Sam is honestly surprised when he looks over and sees no trace of the strain Lucifer is exerting over his own nature.

They both know by now how deeply Sam belongs to Lucifer, whether he says yes or not, whether he is certain he wants it or not. This level of devotion, the carefully maintained distance, all of it is for Sam’s benefit and he’s drowning in it. He won’t say yes, can’t say yes and damn the world, but in the tow of the riptide that is the fallen archangel’s Grace, he fears that he might want to.

_Remember us - if at all - not as lost_   
_Violent souls, but only_   
_As the hollow men…_

They’re in the dream again, sitting in their respective corners of the room, ever mindful of the chasm between them, when it happens.

It had to be Sam, always had to be Sam.

And it is so simple an action, a glance that lingers, catching with Lucifer’s, then the smallest of nods. They need no words, have needed none since Lucifer first began proclaiming his intentions in a tongue Sam does not speak.

Lucifer crosses the room, stops beside the edge of the bed, waiting as Sam turns and slips his feet to the ground, legs framing Lucifer’s if only the archangel would step forward. His eyes are asking a question, asking for a permission that isn’t the Yes, and Sam slips a hand up to tangle fingers with him in response. Taking assurance from the small gesture, Lucifer leans in and touches their foreheads together sharing breath, speaking a blessing over his vessel with a voice that reverberates through Sam’s soul.

Then a thumb traces over the gentle slope of Sam’s lower lip, and Lucifer leans down, pressing lips to Sam’s with no more weight than a flake of snow. When Sam remains there, doesn’t pull back, Lucifer moves forward, his free hand moving to rest at Sam’s nape, and his captured hand squeezing gently at Sam’s. He deepens the kiss, drinking in everything of Sam, eyes wide open, touches feather-light; and when Sam holds onto the crest of his hip, Lucifer finally breathes a word and lets his restraint slip.

“Sam.”

There is suddenly too much space in the room, too great a distance between them, and Sam is aching from the crushing weight of existence as Lucifer moves forward to straddle him, kneeling on the bed, maintaining his height over Sam in their shifted positions. Still holding Sam’s hand, Lucifer slips his tongue out, a slow drag against Sam’s lips, no longer entreating but assured. There will be no denials tonight, nor will there be any reassurances, simply a sharing of human sensation.

The kiss should be obscene, should be repulsive as the fallen archangel touches him, praising him with the slow drag of a raspy tongue against his own. And the way he holds onto Sam should be crushing, bruises certainly forming under his cruel fingers, but the sensations are overridden by the hum of contained Grace straining to reach Sam, arcing at the points of contact.

When he finally leaves Sam’s mouth, lets Sam breath as his brain dictates it should, even in the fantasy of his mind, Lucifer places his lips to the hollow of Sam’s shoulder. Sam knows what’s going to happen if he doesn’t pull back, doesn’t deny him this, but he stays rooted in place as Lucifer pulls skin into his mouth, suction breaking the capillaries hidden just under the surface. Sam knows what this means, knows that Lucifer does as well.

When Lucifer finally lets him go, pressing the gentlest of kisses to the abused skin, his eyes glance up to Sam’s, and eternity is nestled there, lonely and horrifying and eternally Sam’s. Then he moves back and lays his hand over the slowly blooming mark, and pushes. The Grace floods into the mark, turning it opalescent instead of purples and reds, and it spreads a gentle chill through Sam that soothes him.

“Lucifer…” Sam doesn’t know what he’s asking or saying, but they no longer need words, haven’t ever needed them. Sam uses them because they feel safer, something to hide behind of, to misunderstand and misconstrue.

_The supplication of a dead man’s hand_   
_Under the twinkle of a fading star…_

When Sam speaks to others now he feels the mark burn with cold fire, frost forming on his skin, and he glances over to look at eyes of a predator, watching him with all the intensity of the night. When Lucifer nods to the flash of black eyes of a servant and leaves Sam alone, the mark shoots Grace across his skin, immaterial touches trailing down him spine. When Lindsey tries to ask him for a date, the mark is glowing under his layers of shirts, until Lucifer walks over and places his hand over it, slinging himself over Sam’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry, but he’s already promised tonight to me…” And everything in the archangel’s body language is defensive and salacious, the long line of his body promptly on display to show her what she could never compete with. “If you’ll excuse us for a moment.” He nods to her with cold courtesy and pulls Sam into the alley behind the bar.

There are no words then, Lucifer not bothering to confuse their perfect rapport with faulty human words.

It’s Sam who spins Lucifer around and reaches hungrily for his lips, cursing himself as he feels the Devil’s lips curl up at the contact. He’s intoxicated by Lucifer and the man, angel, has done nothing but set a single boundary. He’s never wanted to feel owned or controlled, but this, this is safe; because he knows with a perfect surety that these bonds are self inflicted, born of assiduity. Years on the road, running from everyone, and now he realizes that he’s been running towards Lucifer all along, and he cares nothing about the ties that slowly bind them ever tighter.

Lucifer kisses back with matching intensity, hand over Sam’s mark, Grace pulsing through it, enlarging it so that it is a hand print curling over his trapezius.

Then there is only the slow and steady kisses, and hands reaching out to memorize flesh, and the mounting tension of two halves yearning to be made whole.

_In this last of meeting places_   
_We grope together_   
_And avoid speech…_


End file.
